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National Register of Historic Places Program:
National American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month
November

The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation's historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America's historic and archeological resources.

Snoqualmie Falls, King County, WashingtonPublic Domain photograph, courtesy of Cefka from wikipedia.

The National Register of Historic Places is pleased to
promote awareness of and appreciation for the history and culture of American
Indians and Alaska Natives during National American Indian Heritage Month.
This site showcases

Featured Historic Properties for American Indian Heritage Month:

Rice Bay
Watersmeet, Michigan
Centered around the gathering of wild rice, the village founded at Ketegitigaaning provides an uncommon example in the region of both a traditional, off-reservation community, as well as an area of lakeshore that has been Ojibwe-owned for generations. The establishment of an economy based on wild rice contributed to a distinct cultural identity which differentiated the Ketegitigaaning community from the Lake Superior Ojibwe and non-Ojibwe cultures of the surrounding region.

Iowa Tribe Community BuildingWhite Cloud, Kansas The Iowa Tribe Community Building was completed in 1940 on tribal lands of the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska reservation, about five miles west of White Cloud. The building was constructed by tribal members as part of the New Deal-era Civilian Conservation Corps' Indian Division (CCC-ID), a subset of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The building has served the needs of the Iowa Tribe community over the years as a meeting place for cultural and social events, dances, powwows, funerals, feasts, religious services, social programs, tribal government meetings, and administration.

Wassillie Trefon Dena'ina Fish Cache
Lake and Peninsula Borough, Alaska
The Wassillie Trefon Fish Cache is the last best example of the traditional Dena' ina Athabascan fish cache in the Lake Clark-Iliamna area. Indeed, it is very likely to be the best example of a southwestern Alaska Native log cache extant in the entire Bristol Bay region.

Past highlights:

Indian Mounds Park Mound Group
St. Paul, Minnesota
The Indian Mounds Park site in St. Paul, Minnesota is unique for preserving the only remaining burial mounds within the Minneapolis-St. Paul urban core, which roughly overlies the traditional cultural hub of the Dakota. This sacred site provided a nucleus for burial rituals over thousands of years throughout the Middle Woodland Tradition and likely into the early historic period.

Lawetlat'la (Mount St. Helens),Gifford Pinchot National Forest, (Skamania and Cowlitz Counties), Washington is directly associated with the traditional beliefs of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe and the Yakama Nation regarding origins, cultural history, and nature of the world. Those beliefs are rooted in tribal history and are important in maintaining the cultural continuity of the tribal community.

Wassillie Trefon Dena'ina Fish Cache
Lake and Peninsula Borough, Alaska
The Wassillie Trefon Fish Cache is the last best example of the traditional Dena' ina Athabascan fish cache in the Lake Clark-Iliamna area. Indeed, it is very likely to be the best example of a southwestern Alaska Native log cache extant in the entire Bristol Bay region.

University Indian Ruin Archeological Research DistrictPima County, Arizona This district located in the northeast portion of the Tucson Basin in Pima County, Arizona, includes University Indian Ruin, a prehistoric archeological village, as well as a historic complex of archeological research facilities that was constructed in the 1930s. The archeological site consists of a large Classic period Hohokam village, occupied primarily between A.D. 1150 and 1450.

Chief Son-I-Hat's Whale House and Totems Historic DistrictPrince of Wales-Outer Ketchikan, Alaska"…a name once given (to a clan house) survive(s) the mere structure."
The site includes a traditional longhouse, nine free-standing totem poles, two cemeteries, and a bridge and trail connecting the features.

Hassanamisco ReservationWorcester County, MassachusettsThe reservation is unique in Massachusetts for never have been owned or occupied by non-native people. The Hassanamisco Reservation has been the property of the members of the Nipmuc Tribe and has never been alienated from tribal ownership during the past 400 years.

Red BarnGlades County, FloridaThe barn stands proudly as a reminder of the days when the cattle industry brought a newfound source of income, democracy and independence to the Seminole tribe.

Snoqualmie FallsKing County, WashingtonIt is related among the Snoqualmie that Moon the Transformer created the falls from a fishing weir (a trap created to trap fish while letting water run through) while he was giving shape to the natural environment and the Indian people.

Red BarnSeminole Indian cowboy Charlie Micco and grandson on horseback in a cattle ranch:
Brighton Reservation, Florida." Ca. 1950. Photo is part of the Florida Photographic Collection.

Black Hawk Powwow Grounds
Jackson County, Wisconsin The powwow grounds, in Jackson County, Wisconsin, have been used as a ceremonial and social event center, as well as a dance-ring or powwow ground, since at least the late 1800’s and possibly well before.

Bainbridge FerryCape Girardeau County, MissouriThe Bainbridge Ferry, in Cape Girardeau County, Missouri, is the location where thousands of people from the Cherokee Nation were transported across the Mississippi River from November 1837 and January 1839, during the Cherokee Trail of Tears.

Picotte Memorial Hospital, Walthill, Nebraska
This National Historic Landmark is a one and one-half story frame building that was constructed in 1912-13 to serve as a facility for the practice of Dr. Picotte, the first American Indian woman to practice medicine in the United States.

Cuyler Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn, Kings County, New York
Reverend Cory welcomed American Indians to his church. Learning their language was only one of the ways he met his new congregants on their own terms. He also translated religious readings into the Mohawk-Oneida dialect, and promoted the reacquisition of Indian traditional culture, making the resources of the church available to the native community for that purpose.

McCord
Village, northern Wisconsin
Settled around 1890-1900 by Potawatomi, Ojibwe and related American Indians, the population of McCord was composed of inter-tribal marriages and offspring of Midewiwin and Big Drum societies from the Potawatomi and Ojibwe nations, and also some medicine people from the HoChunk and Menominee Nations.

Effigy Mounds National Monument, northeastern part of Iowa
At the present time, 191 mounds are preserved within the monument, 29 of which are animal-shaped mounds.

White Eagle Park,
Kay County, OK
The Ponca Powwow, held annually at the White Eagle Park in Kay County, Oklahoma, has disseminated elements of Ponca culture to other tribes, establishing the template for the intertribal contest powwow now practiced nationally.

This program offers a series of award-winning
lesson plans that use places listed in the National Register to enliven the study
of history, social studies, and geography. TwHP has ten ready-to-use lesson plans,
available for free downloading, that examine different aspects of American Indian
history.
Titles include:

National Park Service American Indian Liaison Office
The American Indian Liaison Office (AILO) is a small office that was created in 1995, to improve relationships between American Indian tribes, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians and the National Park Service through consultation, outreach, technical assistance, education, and advisory services.

National Park Service American Indian Liaison Office
The American Indian Liaison Office (AILO) is a small office that was created in 1995, to improve relationships between American Indian tribes, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians and the National Park Service through consultation, outreach, technical assistance, education, and advisory services.

Applied Ethnography Program
The NPS Applied Ethnography Program is concerned with living communities and the resources that are important to these groups. The program's role in the National Park Service includes providing information about groups who "assign significance to places closely linked with their own sense of purpose, existence as a community, and development as ethnically distinctive peoples."

Library
of Congress: Built in America (HABS/HAER/HALS)
The Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), the Historic American
Engineering Record (HAER) and Historic American Landscape Survey (HALS) collections document achievements in architecture,
engineering, and design in the United States, including sites related
to American Indian history and culture. Searches on keywords like "American
Indian," or on a specific tribe like the Cherokee, will provide
information on an array of associated sites. Most of the site records
have publication-quality drawings, photographs and historical data.

National Congress
of American Indians
The National Congress of American Indians,
founded in 1944, is the oldest, largest and most representative national Indian
organization serving the needs of a broad membership of American Indian and Alaska
Native governments.

Department
of the Navy--Naval Historical Center
American Indians have participated
with distinction in United States military actions for more than 200 years. The
Navy highlights their involvement online in: 20th Century Warriors: Native
American Participation in the United States Military.

American
Indian Policy Center
The American Indian Policy Center has put together
a resources list that provides access to information about US tribal relations,
enrollment, sovereignty, and treaties. It also provides access to more information
from the Center.

American Indian Tribal Histories Project (website: http://www.ywhc.org/aithp/index.php?topgroupid=&groupid=1) is one of the programs of the Western Heritage Center. The mission of the American Indian Tribal Histories Project is to preserve and maintain American Indian tribal histories and cultures, from an American Indian perspective, for future Generations to come.